


Lessons in Invocation

by icarus_chained



Category: Original Work
Genre: Books, Fae & Fairies, Gen, Humor, Languages and Linguistics, Librarians, Libraries, Magical Accidents, Magical Artifacts, Necromancy, Prompt Fic, Rules, Students, Summoning, Teacher-Student Relationship, Urban Fantasy, school of magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-05
Updated: 2014-07-05
Packaged: 2018-02-07 14:26:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1902420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the library of a magical college, a student makes a <i>small</i> mistake and is invited to remember why the rules of libraries, especially magical ones, exist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lessons in Invocation

**Author's Note:**

> Tiny original ficlet for a prompt. Yes, the prompt was a paraphrasing of BtVS' Giles on the subject of speaking Latin near the books ;)

The mage-librarians worked in perfect, eerie silence, spells of suppression and compression dousing noise and magic more or less simultaneously, reducing an entire wing to a strange, silent motion picture. It was almost beautiful, really, or would have been if it hadn't also been so _bloody creepy_.

"Well," said the professor, philosophically. "It could have been worse, I suppose."

Karl blinked at her. " _Worse_?" he exclaimed, and then clapped a hand over his mouth as the noise, compared to the deadness around them, assaulted his own ears. She raised an eyebrow, and after a second he managed to tone the volume down to a hiss in order to continue. "... How could this have been _worse_? There's six students dead and two more ... two more ..."

"Melted," she finished, helpfully. "Well, technically dissolved into solution, the magic was probably aiming for primordial soup and didn't quite have the components, but 'melted' probably covers it, I think."

Karl swallowed. "You think," he echoed faintly. "Yes. And this is ... this doesn't count as 'worse', to you?"

She paused, turning fully towards him with the oddest expression. A weird, creepy half-smile _thing_ , her eyes over her spectacles like little amber chips of malice. Karl took a step back, a movement entirely driven by his hindbrain, which abruptly did not like Professor Tessaraeus at all and wanted quite fervently to be at least a burning building away from her.

"I did tell you not to speak in front of the books," she said, with arid sweetness. "Latin wasn't your best choice, since you managed to set off a series of partial spells simultaneously, but no, it wasn't your worst either." She smiled that half-smile again, gesturing over to nearby section of the library. "Given that Incantations borders on both Necromancy and Demonology, for ease of access, you understand, there are several wonderful options you could have stumbled across. Accidental summoning is ever so riveting an endeavour, don't you think?"

She draped a friendly arm around his shoulders, steering him over to peer down the high, stooped shelves of the Demonology section, cheerfully ignoring his rigid stance and squeak of terror.

"In this direction, you might have had better luck with Arabic. We have a nice, responsive copy of the Kitab Al-Azif down here." She glanced at him, smiled. "That's the Necronomicon, to you. Or, since you seem fond of wyld magic, or at least the nearest possible substitute, a little German might help you unlock Der Lied der Erlkönig, for interesting fae-related shenanigans. Latin, of course, will net you the Liber Ivonis. Even English will do in a pinch, we've several translations of the Keys of Solomon that work well for the monolingual mage on a budget. And over _here_ ..."

She steered him around, back through Incantations and over towards Necromancy, while Karl's brain was busy gibbering silently to itself. Fortunately silently. He was beginning to understand that.

" _Here_ , we have some wonderful tomes. Of course, being built on a dead zone, ahaha, excuse me, we're rather short of raw materials for necromantic spells to work on. Usually, at least. But with your previous mishap to work with, we have some options. For those in the audience with Egyptian among their talents, there's the ever-popular Book of Going Forth by Day -Book of the Dead, if you're keeping up- but Sanskrit will do either, we have a nice copy of the Sigsaand Manuscript which responds well to it. And, most wonderful of all, with the suppression spells down even random gibberish has a half-decent chance of creating an effect here, since the Voynich Manuscript has been known to accept roughly the correct phonemes as a key to start ripping souls. It's actually fascinating, we have a team of linguists studying that one. Under controlled conditions, of course."

"... Of course," Karl repeated, some distant still-analytical part of his brain wondering what 'controlled conditions' entailed when one of the risks was apparently losing your soul. Did they draft linguists who didn't have any to run the experiments? What did they do, call down some _angels_ for ... No. Not thinking about that. Nope.

"Now, normally the suppression spells on the bookcases render these little happenings unlikely," the professor continued, smiling mildly. "We don't run a circus here, we are safety tested for students and professors alike. But there are _reasons_ for library rules. I'm sure you understand that now, yes? Removing books for study creates little windows of opportunity, and in a magically ripe place like this Murphy's Law tends to be a bit more rigorously enforced than elsewhere. Which is why, Mr Glockner, the first rule of the library _is_ ...?"

She trailed off meaningfully, and Karl swallowed again, finding some scrap of courage from somewhere to square his shoulders and let him face up to those chilly lenses and the amber awls behind them.

"Si--" he started, unfortunately still squeaking a bit. "Silence in the library?"

She smiled, slightly less creepily this time, and reached up to pat him gently on the head. "Very good, Mr Glockner. _Very_ good. I trust you'll remember this in future, hmm?"

 _Yes_ , he imagined fervently. Yes ma'am, he most certainly would.

**Author's Note:**

> Most books mentioned are drawn from TV Tropes' ever useful [Tome of Eldritch Lore](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TomeOfEldritchLore) page.


End file.
